WEST END, PROVIDENCE, RI ANALYTICAL MAPPING
This collaborative research-based mapping project is investigating soil, water, and air qualities across scales as it impacts health quality and the economic and social mobility of residents in the West End and other areas of interest in South Providence. With a concentration on identifying source points of pollution, income disparities, and concentrated poverty, municipal apathy toward environmental concerns, and the rising cost of living and exclusionary zoning laws, these drawings inform our understanding of the West End.
The first map at the region scale investigates sea level rise in the area and hurricane hazard zones due to this rise. The sea-level rise would highly affect large parts of Providence, including a large portion of college hill, downtown Providence, and the Allens Avenue area. Therefore, communities in the West End and South Side are at greater risk.
This map at the city scale brings attention to source point pollution in the Providence area. The map begins to illustrate trends and clusters in industry, including brownstone lands. Most of Providence’s industry is located on Allens Avenue, which is directly on the water and directly to the east from the West End and South Side.
The neighborhood scale map depicts health insurance and health conditions found in kids in the West End. The ground where kids play, the water kids drink, the food kids eat, and the air kids inhale are all highly polluted or processed. The buildings filled with grey are currently industrial buildings emitting pollution.
This map at the building scale investigates neglect to infrastructure and how this affects health in the West End. The average age of a home in the West End is 78 years, which is far before the restrictions against lead pipes were put in place. The city of Providence is only responsible for replacing the mains, which is currently being worked on as a part of a larger 360 million dollar initiative to clean Providence’s water. This means that private homeowners are stuck with lead pipes and might not be able to afford to replace them. In addition to this, a majority of the landscape is paved so runoff and pollutants find themselves seeping into the ground, making ground pollution far worse, or running directly into the Providence River, which is also highly polluted already.
The mast map illustrates street and housing conditions at the Human scale. In the past 70 years, most of the single-family homes have been updated to triple-deckers and multi-family homes, making the West End population steeply increase. In addition to this, approximately 80% of the urban landscape in the area is paved and impervious. This creates what’s known as the Heat Island Effect.